Brave New World: This young woman from Long Island is a finalist for a one-way trip to Mars

Laurel Kaye is just 21, and, if all goes according to plan, she’ll celebrate her 33rd birthday on Mars.

Laurel Kaye is just 21, and, if all goes according to plan, she'll celebrate her 33rd birthday on Mars.

Kaye is the only New York-area native among 100 finalists for Mars One, a private Dutch mission to put the first humans on another planet with a self-sustaining, permanent colony.

Advertisement

Here's the catch: Mars One says it can send people to Mars but not bring them home.

A one-way trip would be a deal-breaker for some, but not for Kaye.

"Dying is going to happen whether you are here or on Mars," Kaye told the Daily News during a birthday trip to — where else? — the Hayden Planetarium. "I don't see myself as dying on Mars. I see myself as living on Mars."

Laurel Kaye of Long Island and a senior at Duke University is one of the 100 finalists for the privately funded Mars One mission. (Andrew Lamberson/for New York Daily News)

"Besides," she adds, "taking one-way trips for a better future is the history of humanity."

Mars One was founded in 2011 by Bas Lansdorp, a wind-power entrepreneur who is branching out into planetary colonization. As implausible as it sounds, Mars One has sparked imaginations worldwide — but it has also inflamed critics, who say the Lansdorp's plan is more science fiction that science. For starters, Mars One has yet to raise anywhere close to the $6 billion it estimates it will need to establish a human presence on the red planet.

The company initially planned to fund the trip by selling reality-TV rights for the journey, but that deal never materialized. So far the company has raised less than $1 million from private donations.

Yet the most controversial aspect of Mars One remains the fact that there is no way for these pioneers to come home. NASA has never intentionally sent anyone on a one-way mission, and it estimates that a round trip to Mars would cost about $90 billion. And Kaye's suggestion that her voyage would be like the European "explorers" of the 15th century who landed in the so-called New World leaves out one important distinction: There's no air or food on Mars — though in theory solar power could provide the energy, and water and oxygen could be made from buried ice.

Again, in theory.

"The technical feasibility of Mars One has not been fully addressed," said Marcel Agüeros, a professor of astronomy at Columbia University. "Until they show they can do what they propose, then skepticism is warranted."

Because of funding shortfalls, Lansdorp announced last month that test flights were being delayed for a few years. He also defended the program from critics who say Mars One is trying to profit from its applicants.

"I'm a poor college student in debt," Kaye explained. "They are not going to be making any money from me, that's for sure."

Another criticism is that the selection process thus far has consisted of very little mental and physical testing.

Kaye agrees that the application process "was by no means rigorous, but that's to come." As she understands it, the 100 remaining finalists will undergo careful review later this year. Only 24 will be selected to advance to the last round, which consists of training in a simulated Martian environment in some freezing Arctic wasteland here on Earth.

Kaye has dreamed of being an astronaut since she was a little girl in Fort Salonga, L.I. She still has that dream as she's a few months away from graduating with dual degrees in physics and chemistry from Duke University.

Advertisement

The young woman is brave but not foolhardy. Before climbing aboard any interplanetary ships, she will closely watch the test flights and unmanned landings that Mars One has planned in the coming years. Though her parents are supportive of her desire to colonize Mars, the whole family is hoping that if she does make it there, technology will eventually progress to the point where new spaceships will make it possible to one day come home to New York.

Mars as seen by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. (AP)

"Whether it succeeds or fails, there is so much we stand to learn from doing something like this," she said. "At some point you just have to be the first person to do something. Otherwise nothing is going to happen."

Martian Chronicles

Mars One hopes to colonize the red planet in a $6 billion mission that follows this timeline:

2013: About 1,000 candidates were chosen as finalists from a reported 200,000 applications to be part of the first human mission to Mars.

2015: One hundred finalists will be selected to begin training for the mission. That group will be pared down during training.

Habitation units on the colony will contain both work and personal space. (Mars One)

2020: A satellite is launched toward Mars to facilitate communications.

2022: A rover is launched toward Mars to scout the ideal location for the settlement.

2024: Six cargo missions are launched that contain all the living units and life-support systems. The units will be assembled by robots.

2026-7: The first four-person crew leaves Earth and lands on Mars. The team works on experiments and sets up more living quarters.